Mother Mary Comes To Me

Brave and absorbing . . . In this remarkable memoir, the Booker-winning novelist looks back on her bittersweet relationship with her mercurial mother . . . The world described in the first part of the book provides much of the material for The God of Small Things. But these pages aren’t significant for giving us access to Roy’s inspiration, or as a preamble to her life as a bestselling writer who would go on to become an oppositional political voice. Even if she were none of these things or had never written her novel, they would be utterly absorbing. They have a wonderful, self-assured self-sufficiency * Guardian *
Beautifully written . . . It is a total pleasure to spend time with Arundhati Roy’s mind and memory in this funny, wise, candid and perceptive memoir * Independent, 'Book of the Month' (5 stars) *
The book has the lyricism of Gabriel García Márquez, the political sweep of Barbara Kingsolver, and the antic family humour of David Sedaris * Financial Times *
Truthful, moving, absorbing . . . [Roy] achieves the one thing that any writer’s memoir ought to do: trace the formation of their voice . . . The best piece of non-fiction she has ever written * The Telegraph *
Unusually, my book of the year is not a novel – it is Arundhati Roy’s outstanding memoir Mother Mary Comes to Me. Roy’s life story is truly remarkable. Her account of it – rooted in her troubled relationship with her mother – affords a real appreciation of the person she became. She shows there is no fixed boundary between fiction and nonfiction in the hands of a skilled writer. Roy rails against injustice and stands up for the values intrinsic to her worldview -- Nicola Sturgeon * Observer, 'The best books of 2025' *
Feels like the best kind of fiction * The Economist *
Arundhati Roy writes in characteristically dazzling prose . . . This memoir teems with irreverent humour and acerbic, often brilliant insights * Irish Independent *
Sharp, irreverent, wickedly funny . . . unsettling, bruising, often brutal, yet ultimately life-affirming * BBC News *
Remarkable, fascinating . . . [Mother Mary Comes to Me] shows us, with a gentle and hard-won wisdom, that we do not forget our mothers, or our motherlands, even when we are miles, continents or “worlds” away from them. We carry them with us wherever we go -- Elif Shafak * Observer *
Arundhati Roy is just an electrifying writer, whatever she’s saying; Mother Mary Comes To Me is a kind of origin myth for her and her books, and a subtle treatment of a very complex parent -- Katherine May * The Shift with Sam Baker, 'Books of the year 2025' *